It begins with sex - awkward, unwashed, grudging sex. A couple share their inner thoughts with the surrounding audience while trying to restoke intimacy post-pregnancy. Phil (Adam Fenton) is gauche and selfish; Alice (Katie Erich) is patronising but brutally enthusiastic. They mime their actions from opposite ends of a bed. She looks like she’s kneading dough. He critiques her body in graphic and frankly unchivalrous terms. The encounter is messy, inconclusive and hilarious.
From here Jack Thorne’s succinctly powerful one-act play opens up. We learn that one and possibly both characters are disabled, track back over their perfectly imperfect courtship and cohabitation, and realise early on that their baby was stillborn. A full production of this portrait of grief, love and exasperation was Indiana Lown-Collins’s prize for winning the JMK Award for young directors, named for the promising James Menzies Kitchen, who died at 28. She does the play and her two performers proud.
